Maor, a local man in his 20s eating breakfast in the cafe, agreed with Ruth's prescription for ending the rocket fire. "We have to kill all the militants [who are launching the Kassams]", he said. "It's the only way to bring quiet back to the town". He maintained: "they had the chance to stop the rockets after we pulled out of Gaza, but they chose to carry on. I know they're suffering in Gaza too, but that doesn't excuse helping the terrorists attack us - they bring it on themselves."

He said that around three thousand of Sderot's residents had left since the rocket attacks began, and that he too would go, given half a chance. "If the government paid us to leave like they did in Gush Katif [during the disengagement], I'd be out of here", he said. He, like many others in the city, doesn't want to live on the front line - they are in the line of fire more by accident than out of some kind of ideological desire to live on the final frontier of the country.

These are not the zealous settlers of Hebron who intentionally plant themselves alongside the Palestinians in a drive to strengthen "Greater Israel". Instead, by a cruel twist of fate, these are average Israelis trying to live normal lives in an atmosphere that is anything but. The war has been brought to their doorsteps, and while the politicians meander their way up diplomatic cul-de-sacs in their peacemaking efforts, they are the ones who suffer.

And, at the same time, their neighbours across the border suffer similarly from the cycle of violence, which is why a military response doesn't seem the best way out of the impasse. Every Israeli incursion brings a heavier rain of Kassams down on Sderot in response, and it might well be that the only way forward is through negotiations if any long-term truce is to come to fruition.

In the meantime, however, the residents of Sderot need to be taken under the wing of a government that, until now, has been woefully reluctant to come to their aid. Evacuating them to safety, whatever the cost, is the least they deserve until the dust settles. Because, as Ruth said sadly, "the worst part of all this isn't the rocket fire - it's the fact that the government just doesn't care". And, just as she claimed that no other government in the world would allow attacks from across its borders, similarly no decent government should abandon its neediest citizens so in their hour of need.

First published on guardian.co.uk